


the fences we mended fall down beneath their own weight

by Anonymous



Category: The Daevabad Trilogy - S. A. Chakraborty
Genre: Animal Abuse (mentioned), F/M, Pre-Canon, Unrequited Crush
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-14
Updated: 2020-02-14
Packaged: 2021-02-28 16:47:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,211
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23270437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Years down the line, you can't think of one good thing to say.
Kudos: 9
Collections: Anonymous





	the fences we mended fall down beneath their own weight

When Ghassan is ten he comes across Manizheh playing with a hare in the gardens, except she's not really playing with it. Even at ten, he knows the difference.

"What are you doing?" he asks, his voice quiet so as not to disturb her overmuch. She's older than him, and she's the palace healer, and she looks like the statues that line the walls. Of course he's impressed by her. It's only to be expected.

Still, he doesn't like how she looks at him like she might a sandfly buzzing around her head, and then back to the hare. A soft smile plays at her lips, and there is fierce determination in her eyes. "I am researching the transmission of pain along the nerves," she says, and reaches for her scalpel again.

Her eyes are gleaming, her skin is flushed, she hasn't told him to go away and leave her alone like she usually does. Ghassan thinks he just might be in love with her.

-

When Ghassan is celebrating his first quarter century, he sees the Banu Nahida has crossed into the men's pavilion and seated herself next to the Baga Nahid. Her chador is blue, nearly translucent, dripping with gems.

He's been thinking about the issue of uniting Daevabad, and despite his father's scorn for his ideas, her presence here fills Ghassan with hope. He takes a sherbet from a servant, and hastens to kneel before her.

"Banu Manizheh, Baga Rustam," he says.

Manizheh's black eyes flash above her veil. "I know magics that will slowly and painfully rot your genitals to gray dust until you beg for death."

Baga Rustam coughs. "Thank you, Emir. You may leave the sherbet here."

As he walks away, Ghassan thinks that he might be making progress, and then he remembers that the Nahids, unlike the rest of the Daevas, unlike the djinns, are a matriarchal culture, and Rustam has no control over who Manizheh marries, or anything else she does.

He will simply have to try harder.

-

"Ah," he says, although he knew the Banu Nahida would be in this alcove of the library this evening. The shafit servants he's bribed are all too happy to report on the Nahid siblings--Chassan suspects, but cannot prove, that his father is already paying them to do so. Manizheh has a pile of scrolls on the desk before her, and the one she is currently perusing is in an unfamiliar alphabet. "It's a beautiful day outside, and a shame to waste it in the library."

Manizheh narrows her eyes at him. "I'm researching poisons," she hisses, and leaves unspoken--but not unimplied--whom she would like to use them upon.

-

Her mouth is severe, but Ghassan has seen it smile when she speaks to her brother. Her hair and eyes are like a starless midnight, or a well that goes to the center of the earth. When she wears trousers, which is often, Ghassan can't help but imagine her strong legs wrapped around his hips. Her skin shines more than any ordinary djinn's, and her ears rise to delicate peaks. Daevas are quite fond of poetry, and Ghassan supposes he could write verses and verses about the Banu Nahida. She would only tear them up, or set them on fire, but he's tempted to do it regardless. He's tempted to do it because she'd do it. He fantasizes about it sometimes, when he's with a courtesan: Manizheh holds out her hand with his poem in it, and it bursts into flame. She blows the ash from her hand, and her blistered skin heals over again, and Ghassan groans and buries himself into the courtesan and spills his royal seed.

His father tells him not to be a fool: if he were to marry the Banu Nahida, _this_ Banu Nahida, he would not be uniting the city. He'd be handing it over to her. And he knows this is true, as well as he knows that Manizheh would never consider it, not even as the price of regaining her power, her family's power.

-

Manizheh's voice is colder than the mountain passes to Tukharistan as she says, "Not if you were the last djinn on earth."

-

"What a soft, weak ewe of a woman," is Manizheh's judgment of Saffiyeh. "But I hear that is the sort of thing that Geziris enjoy."

It is too close to Ghassan's to refute. "She was my father's choice, not mine." And yet: she is beautiful, and accomplished, and diplomatic. She will be a credit to the court, and a comfort in his bed.

"Your father is an imbecile." And that's not far from Ghassan's feelings either. 'What sort of sons will a woman like that give you?"

Ghassan grips her arm, and she is too shocked by the breach of protocol to shatter all the bones in his hand. "At least I will have sons," he tells her, and by the look on her face, that hurts more than the bruises that are even now healing on her skin.

-

He's sure she has no idea that the Seal of Solomon is in his heart, but there are times when Manizheh looks at him like she wants to cut it out and burn it all the same.

-

The messenger gallops out of Daevabad, the stallion kicking up dust that swirls in the wind of its passage, magic glimmering at its heels. Soft and weak, Ghassan thinks, but he loves Saffiyeh for all of that, and even if he did not, he would beg for Manizheh's return, if only to stop Muntadhir's weeping. The boy cried so much, and the only way Ghassan can quiet it is with a short, sharp slap, which never lasted for more than a few hours anyway.

With the spells powering the horse along, the ride to Zariaspa shouldn't take more than a few days, and Nisreen claims that Saffiyeh has at least two weeks left to live: Manizheh will have time enough to return, and make her well again. And yet a week passes, and then another, and there is no sign of either Nahid, and Ghassan kneels by his wife's sickbed every night, his knuckles white, his heart hollow. He knows Manizheh despises him, and would hardly blame her if she refused to heal him, but Saffiyeh is innocent, blameless in everything. It is cruelty of the highest, most exquisite, sort, and as such, entirely predictable. 

Manizheh returns after Saffiyeh's cremation. Every so often a sly smile graces her lips. She's proud of herself. She lingered in the far reaches of rural Daevastani, and did not return to the city when Ghassan's wife was ill, was dying, but now she is back, and she is proud of herself. Ghassan has watched her for more than a century, and everything about her, from that smile to her carriage to the earrings that catch and multiply the sunlight, says that she is proud of what she has done, in letting his wife die.

Ghassan cannot tell if this means that she loves him, or he hates her. And he will see if she is still smiling when she realizes he has entered her quarters, and used all her research notes and favorite books as kindling for Saffiyeh's pyre.


End file.
